


Love Will Do What It Does

by byrd_the_amazin



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, katherine plumber is a lesbian i will be taking no further questions at this time, the rooftop scene! but gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21543946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byrd_the_amazin/pseuds/byrd_the_amazin
Summary: the rooftop scene following the rally, but gayer and with more plot holes!!
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 4
Kudos: 93





	Love Will Do What It Does

**Author's Note:**

  * For [buckydarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckydarling/gifts).



> hey isa if you're reading this .... fuck you 
> 
> it's stupid o clock am and i have obligations and responsibilities tomorrow and instead of sleeping or preparing for literally any of them i'm here 
> 
> cheers 
> 
> here goes nothing

Even before Jack finished speaking, people were yelling. 

The Manhattan newsies had never been an orderly bunch to begin with. Tossing in representatives from every borough in New York, as well as Spot Conlon and his own detail from Brooklyn, and the crowd was almost impossible to contain once something set them off. Throughout the rally, every time someone said something exciting or rousing or vaguely inspirational, several minutes were spent trying to maintain order. 

But this was beyond disorderly. Jack’s words had enraged them, sending them into momentary shock as they tried to process what, exactly, their fearless leader was saying--  _ disband the union? Did Cowboy just say--  _ and then a furious uproar as the truth set in.The theater seemed to shake as hundreds of newsies from all over the city all started shouting, pushing each other, and shoving to try and reach the stage, figure out what was happening, why their leader and figurehead had suddenly ducked out on them.

Boroughs were yelling at each other, yelling at Manhattan, yelling at Jack. Manhattan was mostly just yelling at Jack, and he caught a glimpse of Race unsuccessfully trying to hold a livid Spot Conlon back before he felt a fist connect with his face and he doubled over, face throbbing from the punch. As he straightened once more (making no move to fight back; he knew he deserved it, and besides, he didn’t want to put himself up against Spot Conlon when he wasn’t even sure if his own boys would back him right now), he caught sight of Davey, standing off to the side, and--

Oh,  _ shit.  _

“Shit,” Jack murmured. “Davey…” 

Davey didn’t look angry, or shocked, or hot-blooded and raring for a fight, like a majority of the room. He just looked heartbroken _ ,  _ like someone had shattered his fondest dreams right in front of his face. He looked right at Jack with a betrayed, haunted look in his eyes, and it was  _ devastating.  _

“ _ Davey, _ ” Jack said, more urgently. He started to move forward- to catch Davey’s sleeve, to stop him, to explain why he’d said those things, why he’d crushed the dreams of every working kid in this theater. 

_ I did it for you!  _ he wanted to scream. He wanted to grab Davey by the shirt and shake some sense into him, to yell at him that he’d done this for  _ him.  _ He’d done it for Crutchie and he’d done it for Les and he’d done it for all the Manhattan boys who he’d spent sleepless nights worrying about on more than one occasion, but mostly he’d done it for  _ Davey.  _

It was too late. Davey had slipped away into the darkness of the wings, and Jack was left facing a very pissed off Spot Conlon, with Race standing behind him, looking like he half wanted to step in and half wanted to beat the shit out of Jack himself. 

Jack braced himself for another punch, but Spot placed both hands on Jack’s chest and bodily shoved him out of the way. He stormed past, apparently finished, and Race followed with one last glance at Jack. 

Down in the theater, it was still madness. Fights were breaking out, and screaming matches were reaching alarming pitches. Several of the Manhattan boys had fought their way to the front, most likely to try and get some answers out of Jack, but he found he didn’t have the courage to face his boys. Not now, when he’d just said and done all that for a sum of cash from Pulitzer’s pockets. 

_ Filthy money.  _ He didn’t want it anymore, but he also didn’t want to talk to his boys right now.

He turned tail and fled into the wings.

~

The lodging house rooftop had always been where Jack had felt safest. 

He’d spent many a night up there, dreaming about a small town far, far away from this dirty city, planning out his travels with Crutchie, more often than not falling asleep mid-plot and then waking up as the sun rose. Sometimes, when a selling day had been particularly bad, he vanished to the rooftop to clear his head, sketch a bit with some paper and charcoal he’d managed to finesse, calm down before facing his boys. They looked to him to be their leader, but sometimes he felt like a downright lousy one. 

So it seemed almost second nature for his feet to carry him to the rickety old ladder, for his arms to propel him up the rungs, until he found himself on a familiar landscape with an unfamiliar face looking over at him, startled. 

Davey composed himself before Jack had the chance to. “That was… some speech you made.”

Jack blinked, then narrowed his eyes, because as much as he’d wanted to explain himself to Davey back in the theater, now he was just pissed off. “How’d you get up here?”

Davey had been to the lodging house any number of times, but Jack hadn’t shown him the rooftop yet. It felt too private, too intimate. Something to be shared between him and Crutchie and a select few veteran newsies who knew about it. 

“Specs showed me,” Davey replied. He had something in his hands. Jack realized, as he came down from the shock of seeing his friend in such an out of context scene. It looked like a rolled up bunch of papers. In fact, it looked like  _ Jack’s  _ rolled up bunch of papers, and Jack was having approximately none of that. 

“Oh? And did  _ Specs  _ give you permission to go through my shit?” he demanded, marching forward and snatching the roll from Davey’s hands. Bad enough Davey was on his rooftop, his secret, brooding, daydreaming space. He couldn’t have Davey looking through his drawings, too. There had to be a line somewhere. Those were  _ personal _ . Even Crutchie knew not to ask about Jack’s drawings, and he was as close to Jack as one could get. 

Davey made an indignant noise. “ _ No.  _ They were sticking out of that pipe over there, rolled up. I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t know they were… yours.”

Jack rolled his eyes as he frantically rolled the drawings back up, stuffing them back in the rooftop pipe he stored them in. It was weak, as far as excuses went, and-- but Davey was still holding one. 

_ Fucking shit.  _ He’d missed one, but even as he reached for it, Davey turned away, unrolling it and taking in the drawing with a heavy sort of silence. “This… This is a drawing of the Refuge, isn’t it?”

Jack didn’t answer, but he could feel his jaw tightening, and as Davey turned back to look at him, recognition dawned in his eyes, and his voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “Is this really what it’s like in there, Jack?” He looked back down at the drawing, tracing it ever-so-lightly with a single fingertip. “Three boys to a bed and rats everywhere? Is this…?”

Jack’s mind reeled as a wave of memories hit him full force. He’d been a ward of the Refuge on more than one occasion, and as much as he joked about it, regaling anyone who’d listen with the daring tales of Cowboy, who caught a ride with the governor and fearlessly escaped jail, laughing the whole way home...

The truth? The Refuge had  _ fucked him up _ , just like it fucked up every kid who stayed there for any period of time. The place was filthy, crawling with the diseases of a hundred dirty street kids with no access to physicians and a hundred more rats creeping around the place. There weren’t enough beds to go around, so most nights he was either bunking up with at least two others or braving the vermin-infested floor. The food was scarce and nearly inedible. Sick kids just got sicker by the day, and the sniffling and soft crying and groans were a constant, never-ceasing chorus that eventually you had to drown out or risk losing your mind. 

Hitching a ride with Roosevelt and essentially saving himself from insanity and further torture was the best thing to ever happen to Jack, not that he would tell his boys that. 

His heart hammered in his chest as the flashbacks slowly faded, and Davey was still staring at him, so Jack managed a small, bitter smile. “A little different from where you were raised, huh?” He reached for the drawing, and this time, Davey let it go. 

“You know, I asked around,” Davey said, as Jack rolled up the drawing and shoved it in the pipe with the rest. “After you told me you’d been to jail? I asked the other newsies what you’d done. Race finally caved and told me you’d gotten your dumb ass caught stealing food and clothes.” He fixed Jack with a heavy look, and Jack turned away, pretending to still be busying himself with securing the drawings. “Stealing food and clothes  _ for them.” _

It had been the coldest winter on record in years, and Jack, usually so careful, got reckless with the amount of shit he was stealing. Somewhere deep inside him was a paralyzing fear of one of his boys catching ill and dying from the elements, and he wouldn’t let that happen while he was still in charge of them, so he went overboard, and got himself caught in the process. 

“I don’t  _ understand, _ ” Davey said frustratedly, running a hand through his hair. “You did that for  _ them. _ You were willing to go to  _ jail  _ for those boys! How could you turn your back on them now?”   
  


“I didn’t  _ turn my back on them! _ ” Jack yelled, a pent-up bubble of anger finally bursting as he whirled to face Davey. He’d wanted to explain, before, but now he was just  _ pissed.  _

“Oh, you  _ cannot  _ defend yourself to me,” Davey snapped, jabbing a finger at Jack’s chest. “Tell me how what you just did at that rally  _ isn’t  _ turning your backs on them. On  _ us. _ ”

“Because I-” Jack said, and then faltered. “I did it…”

“Spit it out, Jack!” Davey cried furiously. “Make excuses all you want, but you can’t deny the fact that there’s a whole theater full of kids down there who needed a leader and you failed to show up when they needed you most, goddammit.”

“I did it for  _ you _ !” Jack yelled, channeling all of his anger and hurt into five simple words and feeling the immediate release. “I didn’t take the deal for the money or the chance to get the hell out of here, I took the deal because Pulitzer said he would  _ protect you  _ if I called off the strike, you fucking idiot!”

Davey looked at him, and something in his eyes was unreadable-- shock? Disbelief? Horror? “You did- you did  _ what? _ ”

Jack took a deep breath. No sense in backing out now.  _ Time to dig yourself deeper, Jacky Boy.  _ “I agreed to try and call off the strike because Pulitzer threatened you. He threatened Les, and he threatened all my other boys who can’t-- they can’t defend themselves, Davey. They  _ need  _ me. And then he brought up Crutchie-” Jack’s voice broke. 

In the midst of all his flashbacks, he hadn’t even spared a thought for Crutchie, alone in that hellhole with no way out and no hope that any savior was coming. Jack had a traumatic time in the Refuge as an able-bodied, quick-witted kid with both the motivation and the ability and the opportunity to escape. But Crutchie...

“I’m worried about him,” Jack whispered. “I took the deal for him, and for Les, and all the Manhattan boys. But mainly I just agreed to his terms for  _ you _ , Davey.”

Davey’s expression hadn’t changed. In fact, he hadn’t moved since Jack had started speaking. Jack wasn’t even sure he was still breathing. 

For a long time, neither of them spoke, the silence between them almost permeable. Then Davey said, “I don’t need your fucking help.”   
  


“I- what? I’m sorry?” Jack demanded, because of all the things he’d expected to come out of Davey’s mouth…

“I’m no charity case,” Davey said coldly, echoing his words from his first day as a newsboy. “I don’t need you to protect me, and I don’t need you making shady deals with rich fucks to try and save my skin. I can take care of myself.”

“A  _ thank you _ would be nice,” Jack snapped. 

“I didn’t  _ ask  _ you to protect me!” Davey shot back. “I’m not one of your boys!”

“And you’re damn lucky, because if you were one of my boys, you’d be trying to talk with a fist in your fucking mouth,” Jack growled, advancing on Davey. 

Davey, to his credit, didn’t even wince, even as Jack got right up in his face. “And if I was one of your boys,  _ you’d  _ be looking at me through one  _ swollen eye _ !” he hissed. 

Jack let out a helpless laugh. “By all means, don’t let that stop you.” He presented his face to Davey, waving a hand mockingly at himself. “Give it your best fucking shot, man.”

Davey made a sudden movement, and Jack steeled himself for a blow. Even if Davey didn’t have the proper technique (and Jack doubted a proper boy raised in a home like his did), punches to the face still didn’t feel great. 

But instead of hitting him, Davey grabbed both sides of Jack’s face, pulled him forward, and crushed their mouths together in one swift motion. 

For a second, Jack was too startled to think anything except,  _ what the fuck _ .

_ What the fuck?  _

Then something in his brain restarted, and he realized that he was kissing Davey. 

Davey was kissing  _ him.  _

Davey was  _ kissing him,  _ and now Davey was pulling away, their mouths making a slight smacking sound as they disconnected, and Jack dimly noted that he didn’t want to stop kissing Davey,  _ ever,  _ so he moved back in for another kiss, but Davey planted a hand on Jack’s chest, effectively trapping him in place and jolting him out of his haze. 

“What…?” he began, but found he didn’t have any words. He tried again. “What…?”

Davey laughed, nervous and gentle, and it was one of the most beautiful things Jack had ever heard, but he was still completely gobsmacked.  _ Why had Davey done that? _

“Wait,” Jack protested, squeezing his eyes shut and then reopening them, as if Davey would cease to exist the moment he blinked. “What is this… what is this about? For you, I mean. What is  _ this- _ ” He gestured frantically between them. “-about for you?”

Davey tilted his head, the tiniest of smiles in the corner of his mouth. 

“Wh- I mean, am I kidding myself?” Jack asked. “Or is there… Is there something here?”

The tiny smile grew, and spread across Davey’s face until Jack felt like he was looking directly into the sun. “ _Something here?_ ” he repeated. “Jack, of course there is.”

He said it like it should have been obvious, and Jack drew back, hurt. 

“Don’t just say that like it happens every day,” he said nervously. 

Davey’s eyes widened. “Oh, Jack, I didn’t mean-”

“No,” Jack said firmly, cutting him off with a hand in his face, like,  _ wait.  _ “No, I’m not- I’m not an  _ idiot!  _ I know guys who-who like guys…” He trailed off, letting Davey fill in the blanks himself. “But I also know guys like  _ you _ don’t end up with guys like  _ me. _ ” He looked Davey in the eyes, more serious than he’d ever been before. “I can’t have you… promising something you’re just gonna take back later, I  _ can’t-  _ I just…” 

He looked at Davey, then, really looked at him. He took in the way the moonlight was glowing off the sharp lines of Davey’s cheekbones and catching in the white checks in Davey’s shirt, and he met his friend’s eyes. Davey had beautiful eyes, wide and brown and gentle but so expressive and questioning at the same time. 

Jack realized, somewhat belatedly, that he was  _ terrified  _ of this going south, of Davey laughing at him, or rejecting him, or avoiding him for the rest of their lives, or ratting him out for liking guys. 

“Standing here tonight, looking at you,” he began, and then stopped, brought a hand up to Davey’s face to cradle it gently. “I’m scared, Davey.”

“Of what?” Davey whispered, eyes never leaving Jack’s.

“I’m scared tomorrow’s going to come and change everything,” Jack confessed. “I wish… there was a way I could grab hold of this moment, just… just make  _ time stop,  _ so I could just keep on looking at you.” 

“You’re such an artist,” Davey breathed, and then closed his eyes. “You know something?”

Jack waited. 

Davey opened his eyes again, and Jack saw that they were brimming with tears, crystal in the moonlight. “You snuck up on me, Jack Kelly,” he said, so softly it was almost inaudible. “I never even saw it coming.”

Jack drew back, searching Davey’s eyes. “For sure?”

Davey laughed lightly. “For sure,” he confirmed. “Right up till the moment I found you, I thought I knew what love was. But now?” His smile grew, and Jack thought if he could just keep making Davey smile, he’d be alright in life. “Now _ ,  _ I’m learning what is true; love will do what it does.”

Jack let out a laugh. “It sure will.”

“And the world,” Davey continued. “It will find ways to sting you, over and over, but then… But then one day, it decides to bring you something to believe in.”

He poked Jack’s chest. “That’s you.  _ You’re  _ my something to believe in.”

“David Jacobs, I’m convinced we were never meant to meet,” Jack said boldly. “But then we  _ did,  _ strangers on a street turned friends, and now I’m better for it. You couldn’t have known it, but  _ you  _ gave  _ me  _ something to believe in.”

“Jack,” Davey said, in an awed, hushed tone, and that was all the warning Jack got before Davey was pressing their mouths together once more. 

Jack did his best to respond to the kiss this time, instead of just standing there. It wasn’t his first kiss by any means, but it still left him feeling breathless when they parted, Davey gently pulling away to rest his forehead against Jack’s as he exhaled slowly. 

“Jack,” Davey whispered. “Are you really going to Santa Fe?” 

“You know I have to,” Jack replied, and Davey closed his eyes, as if he’d already anticipated the answer he was going to get before he asked the question. “But Dave… even if I’m gone tomorrow, this?” He gestured between them once more. “This will still be a thing.  _ Our  _ thing. I promise.”

“Jack Kelly, you’ve given me something to believe in,” Davey murmured. 

“Only because I know you believe in me,” Jack answered, and this time, it was him who pulled Davey in for the kiss. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> rushed! ending! for the win!
> 
> i know the song lyrics translated into conversation isn't my forte and it's jilted and awkward don't @ me 
> 
> plot holes:
> 
> \- spot punched jack when i saw newsies live onstage and it was literally so much more satisfying then the baby shove in the movie so i included a punch and a shove bc let's be real he kinda deserves both
> 
> \- i realize now that jack never actually receives the money from Shady McGee in this fic. oh well. just pretend like he did. 
> 
> \- kath will give them the idea for the children's crusade when they come down off the roof, probably
> 
> \- at some point jack will also have to explain himself to her and they will have to have their little shit-throwing contest about kath lying about her dad blablabla 
> 
> \- there are more i'm sure 
> 
> \- it's three thirty am please i have a wife and children


End file.
